Emmaline hesitated a minute at the front door as if to brace herself. Anna undoubtedly knew about Michael. She’d obviously come up from Washington either yesterday or early this morning. Surely, Mr. Delaney had told her as soon as she’d walked through the door.

  Em felt bad about not calling Anna back. She knew that out of everyone, Anna would take Michael’s absence the hardest. The two of them had a whole life planned together after all. Anna had even already asked Emmaline to be a bridesmaid whenever they finally got around to tying the knot. God, this was going to suck.

  She blew out a breath and opened the door just as the doorbell sounded again. A cold blast of air swished over Em as she stood in the open doorway. On the stoop stood Mr. Delaney and Anna. Their faces were drawn with no smiles of welcome like usual.

  “Hey,” Emmaline said and stepped aside to let them in.

  Neither of them said a word as they entered and took off their coats. Em would have to remember to get a coat before leaving for the hospital. The temperature outside had dropped considerably since they’d gotten home last night.

  She stood aside as they hung their coats in the front closet, not sure what to say. The silence between the three of them was almost more than Emmaline could bear, so finally she spoke up. “Mom’s in the kitchen.”

  She then turned and made her way across the living room. Mr. Delaney and Anna both knew the house well, so she didn’t have to show them where to go. Em entered the kitchen and took her place back at the island even though her plate from breakfast was gone.

  There was silence as Mom finished up with the dishes and shut the washer door. She turned slowly to the guests, who were hovering between the living room and the kitchen. Mom stood for a long moment as if unsure what to do, but then she gestured to the kitchen table.

  “Have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Coffee,” Mr. Delaney said as he moved to the table and sat down in the chair Dad usually sat at.

  Anna didn’t say anything as she followed and took a seat just beside her dad. It was the seat where Eric sat when he was home and just across from Michael’s place at the table, which Anna knew. Her eyes were glued to the empty chair, staring as if doing so might bring him back. It was then Emmaline noticed the redness of Anna’s face. Em assumed it was from the cold, but she realized Anna had been crying recently.

  “Here you go,” Mom said, setting coffee in front of Mr. Delaney and Anna. Mom didn’t ask how they had taken it. She already knew. Emmaline did too. Mr. Delaney’s was black, and Anna's two sugars and a splash of milk.

  Mr. Delaney took up his mug and sipped. Anna did not. Mom took the seat in her normal place with a mug of her own. And then one of the most uncomfortable silences Emmaline had ever experienced settled on the kitchen.

  Em squirmed on her barstool as time stretched on. She also wondered if she should take a seat at the table, but was afraid to move and definitely too afraid to speak. Finally, it was Mom who broke the silence.

  “I know you both have questions. What would you like to know?” Her voice was steady but quiet.

  Mr. Delaney set his mug down carefully, his knuckles whitening around the ceramic. “Everything, Cassie. I think we deserve that much.”

  Mom’s shoulders tensed, but she nodded, but before she could say a word, Anna spoke up. Anger was clear in her voice.

  “Did he know? Did Michael know any of this before yesterday?”

  “No, Anna. Michael didn’t know a thing.” Mom said.

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” Anna replied. “Dad said he was five, nearly six when you brought him here. Wouldn’t he have had memories of his time there, or at the very least impressions that he’d come from somewhere else?”

  Emmaline sat up straight. That was a good question. She had memories from when she was three, dressing up for Halloween as a ballerina, and four, when she’d asked Santa for a trip to the moon and he had laughed. He had laughed!

  “Well, that’s a little difficult to explain,” Mom said hesitantly. “You have to understand that Michael was not well after the attack on him by his brothers in Ethia. His body had healed, but his mind had not. It had been well over a month when we got to Earth after the attack, and he was still not speaking much.

  “Taking him out of that environment helped, but most nights he woke up screaming from night terrors. He would spend many days in silence, not really interested in his toys, and loud noises would upset him greatly. Sometimes it would take hours to get him to settle down. Add in the fact that we were in a completely new place where Arie and I were struggling to figure out how to fit in without revealing who we really were.

  “I didn’t want to do it, and neither did Arie, for that matter, but after several more months of this, we decided it would be best for Arie to put locks inside Michael’s mind.

  “I’m not sure if I explained this to you yesterday, John, but some Ethians do have special abilities called Dome-ni. There are many kinds. Some are more active and some passive, but special training is required to activate them and use them properly.

  “Anyway, Arie is a Mind Bender. First, he used his ability to lock away the attack that happened to Michael. We thought that would be enough, but even though the memory itself was no longer accessible, there was what Arie calls bleed-through. Michael was still having night terrors, so bad that he hurt himself a few times. He also wasn’t assimilating into this new life very well, refusing to play with other children and still not speaking much.

  “Arie determined that there was enough context left in Michael’s mind of what had happened to still cause him distress. So after discussing it at great length, we decided to lock away all his memories of his childhood and Ethia, and start with a fresh identity. With us being on this planet in a new place, it seemed like the best course of action if he was going to have any sort of normal life. It would also help him assimilate much better.

  “It was a long and difficult process for Arie. He’d never attempted such a thing before, but the more he worked on Michael, he could see his curiosity, playfulness, and excitement for life coming back.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “So you brainwashed him,” Anna spat out.

  Mom flinched at Anna’s accusation. “No, not brainwashed. We... protected him.” Her voice trembled slightly, then steadied. “His memories weren’t erased, just locked away where they couldn’t hurt him anymore.”

  “That’s semantics, Cassie,” Mr. Delaney replied with anger in his voice, and Emmaline couldn’t help but feel anger herself. She didn’t know about this part. Mom had conveniently left it out when she’d been talking to her and Michael yesterday, or had Dad already told Michael what he’d done?

  “You essentially erased who he was,” he continued.

  Mom shook her head. “No, Arie assured me that the essence of my son would remain, and that he would just have a fresh start. A new beginning with a new place to live and a new name.”

  “A new name?” Anna’s voice cracked. “So Michael isn’t even his real name?”

  Mom’s fingers tightened around her mug. “His birth name is Adar and his family name is Zahn. We didn’t think those names would fit well here on Earth, so we came up with a new one for him. But I’ve been using Michael for so long, I can’t even think of him as Adar any more.”

  Anna’s face contorted, her eyes welling with fresh tears. “So everything I knew about him was a lie.”

  “No,” Mom said, leaning forward. “His kindness, his humor, his intelligence—all of that is real. It’s who he truly is, whether he’s called Michael or Adar. He is himself, but without the trauma. That’s gone. Arie locked the memory of the attack away so Michael could never access it. Though he left Michael with the ability to remember his previous life in Ethia. After he spends some time there, he will remember, and when he does, Michael will realize that not having access to those memories for a time never really took away from his core character.

  “Certainly, his perspective differed from if he’d always had those memories, but Arie and I didn’t see that as a problem. Michael grew up in a loving and supportive environment on a world with vast diversity and conflict, but also a place that had a great capacity for beauty, joy and connection that he would never get in his life in Ethia, or with those memories dragging him down.”

  There was silence for a moment as everyone took that in. Emmaline felt a little rattled. She hadn’t realized her brother had been altered to such an extent. Was what her mother was saying really true, that Michael was still the same person at heart, or was she saying those things to make herself feel better about what had been done to him? And then another terrifying thought occurred to her.

  “Did Dad use that mind thing on me? Did he change my memories too?”

  “No, Emmaline. He did not.”

  That made her feel immensely better, but then another thought popped into her head. “Did he use it on anyone else we know?”

  Mom paused for a moment, telling Em all she needed to know. Crap on a cracker!

  “Who?” Emmaline demanded.

  “When we first came here, we knew nothing about this planet, the people, the culture. We were fortunate that we ran across Roger early on and that he was open-minded about who we were. He insisted that keeping our identities a secret was vital if we wanted a normal life, especially one for Michael. So he did what he could to help us, including pretending we were distance cousins with the same last name.”

  Layton. That was where their last name had come from. She knew about the distant-cousin thing. She had always thought of Eric’s dad, Roger, as an uncle even though he’d died in a car accident long before she was born. It had been natural that Eric had come to be a part of Dad, Mom, and Michael’s family after his father had died because they were next of kin, but now Emmaline knew that wasn’t true at all.

  “Eric was just shy of ten when we met him and his father, so he was old enough to know there was something strange about us, though I don’t think he understood exactly where we came from. But he took an instant liking to Michael, or I guess I should say Adar. Eric knew something was wrong with him, and Eric tried his best to bring Adar out of his shell. He succeeded to some degree, but not enough to make a significant difference.

  “Then Arie started making the change from Adar to Michael, which wasn’t an instant process. It took several weeks and some trial and error on Arie’s part. Remember, I said he’d never done anything like this before. Arie knew how, but actually doing it was more difficult than he’d anticipated. It also influenced Eric in a way we did not expect.

  “Eric noticed the changes in Adar—Michael—and became confused and upset. He’d formed a connection with this strange, withdrawn boy, and suddenly that boy was different. Acting differently. Responding differently. We had even told Eric to call him by a different name. For a ten-year-old, it was deeply unsettling. In the end, Roger gave Arie permission to give Eric some small mental alterations so that he could accept Michael fully and forget about the boy he first knew.”

  “So Dad changed Eric too,” Emmaline threw out in accusation.

  “To a much lesser degree than Michael, yes, but those memories of Adar aren’t gone. Arie just locked them away inside Eric’s mind until a more appropriate time for them to be remembered.”

  “I don’t care which way you cut it, Eric’s going to be pissed, Mom.”

  Mom blew out a breath. “Yes, I’m sure he will be about a great many things.”

  “Is there anyone else?” Mr. Delaney asked in a dangerous tone.

  Mom met the man’s dark glower from across the table. “No, John. That’s all. Arie only ever used his ability like that only in extreme circumstances. I assure you.”

  “I’m not really that assured considering you’ve been lying since the moment I met you. How can I even trust what you are telling me is true right now?” he snapped.

  Mom looked very sad and took a moment to respond. “I understand how all of you must feel. You feel betrayed and angry, and you have every right to. We betrayed your trust. We could have, at any time come out and told you the truth, but we kept it hidden. And actually, Arie wanted to tell the truth as soon as Michael became of age, but I was the one who insisted on staying silent.

  “My son was happy and had a whole life for himself planned out that he was excited about. If we had told him the truth, it would have changed that. To what degree, we didn’t know, but I did know that I had seen my son in a very bad place because of what those bastard Zahn brothers had done to him, and I wanted to spare him from even knowing that had happened.

  “And no, because I know what you’re all thinking of asking, I had it in my head that Michael would never have known the truth of who he was and where we came from if I could have helped it. And if I wasn’t going to tell Michael, I wasn’t going to tell anyone else either. We were all happier as we were, and there didn’t seem to be a reason to upset that.”

  “Until the ship came,” Emmaline threw out there.

  Mom’s jaw tightened. “Until the ship came,” she said quietly. And then she went on. “I may not be who I said I was, but I am still me. All the time I spent with each of you was genuine. Our connections have been as honest and true as it gets. Each of you are important to me and to Arie. I am sorry we lied to you, but I am not sorry for protecting my son.

  “And John, besides us hiding where we came from and all this stuff about Michael, Arie and I have always been honest with you. We both have greatly appreciated your friendship over the years, but I understand that all this might change that. I hope it doesn’t, but I wouldn’t blame you if you decided you wanted nothing to do with us anymore. I ask only that you keep our secret, at least until I can figure out what our next steps are.”

  More silence. This one is not so uncomfortable. Not even angry. More like a moment of processing, maybe even a moment of acceptance. Finally, Mr. Delaney spoke up. Most of his anger was gone; now he just looked sad.

  “I think we are just going to need some time, Cassie. This is a lot to take in, and for some of us, this is going to be more impactful than for others.”

  He was talking about Anna. She hadn’t said anything for a while. She just sat there staring at Michael’s empty seat and looking like she might break out crying any moment.

  “I understand,” Mom said quietly. She then stood up and walked to Anna’s chair. “I’m sorry, Anna. I really am. If it makes you feel any better, I know Michael would much rather have stayed here with you, with all of us.”

  Anna bowed, putting her head in her hands and started to cry. Her shoulders shook violently, and her sobbing made Emmaline want to break down too. Mom wrapped an arm around her from one side. Mr. Delaney from the other. Em didn’t want to be left out, so she hopped off the stool and hugged Anna from behind, and suddenly Emmaline couldn’t keep her tears back any more. She let all the anger, frustration, and sadness that had been swirling around in her since yesterday go as she wept.